At the very beginning, there was Ratopia. Then, there's ratology. In ratology, we get to observe whether someone with psychosis and neurosis could amount to something. This was a question to be answered till the end of my time. Except for now, a few stenosis and hernia as well as months of diminished mobility and debilitating pain after, the question has turned to be... Could someone with such characteristics amount to anything and go anywhere?

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The awakening... American Dream

Road Runner is gonna start to cost me a good 60 bucks a month after the promotional period and the company is not going to stop charging me the fees until I have the cable modem returned.

After being informed by my adjuster from the worker’s’ com insurance that my transportation to doctors and physical therapist are not to be provided :-O, I took off from home about 2 PM to drop the modem at Time Warner’s office uptown.

It was painstaking, literally, to get down to the subway station.

It was an even worse journey to get out of the subway station at 215th and 10th Ave. because this is one of the rare stops where the NYC subway is actually above the ground by about 2-3 floors… :-x

By the time I got down to the road, I was about to retire to the horizontal position on the pavement…

Yet, there were a good few blocks to go before the mission of the day is accomplished.

I walked a few steps, stopped to rest, and sat down at whatever surface that could hold my bulging ass.

And, like what they say…

Because I could not stop to be slow… it kindly stops for me…

I walked pass a gas station.

I walked pass the inspection place for cars in New York.

I moved pass the bus depot.

And, with a right turn, I finally arrived at the Timer Warner cable.

Taking the waiting time as an opportunity for calming down the pain through meditation., I had the cable modem returned and the service cancelled.

Back out is another trip… requiring much more calculation… would I be able to climb up those stairs to take that sky-high subway since disability access not provided at the given station?

I, then, decided to walked across that wide street, where the gentleman driving the garbage truck kindly stopped for me and the rest of the traffic.

I arrived at the bus station and limped myself all the way up the bus in search for another period of zen moment for further meditation.

Along this trip, in search for my public transportation, I thought to myself… is this what God wants me to do? To see more of the neighborhood through my bare eye, on feet?

I also thought to myself… no wonder the department of homeland security said no to my becoming a resident alien—even me myself do not need to and want to be disabled in America.

The only problem… I can’t even handle the bus trip… let along a trip on the airplane, which would take over 20 hours to get home.

The bus got me to 125th and Amsterdam, where I used to hop on and off buses to go from one job to another.

Less than 5 months ago now… I thought to myself.

Such a sad little walk….. from being dropped off from M100 till I moved my own butt across Amsterdam and got on to M11, which goes along Amsterdam.

I could have waited for M 60, which comes from La Guardia Airport and would drop me right by Rite Aid next to my home—where I would be cooking my own meal based on nothing more than nutritional values.

Yet, I got on to M 11, got off closed to this Chinese restaurant, which sells me my one and only dish… thermo-nuclear beef with pig intestines.

They kindly served me my wine and I said and watched.

Then I realized…

American dream it is.. isn’t it?

I have always said to myself that I wanted to stay in New York because I am part of New York.

Yet, perhaps, this is but another one of those stories about those coming to find a living in New York--- or, to the United States in general.

Maybe it is just the awakening from an American dream in which I was unaware of myself being in a state of dreaming---

Is that what that I am experiencing?

Chatting with the nice people at work in the restaurant…

I came to the realization that… the 35th year of my life will pass and so will I move on.

Be it the native (? :-O) or the emigrants, we will, at times, live through the nightmare, which has been euphemistically coined as American dreams or vice versa…

Dragging myself back home… in the middle of Broadway I sat to rest.

I looked at the surrounding and I thought to myself…

I might be an invalid who cannot yet get back to work…

I did have something accomplished…

I returned the cable modem… a trip so very strenuous for me—yet might not be as bad for the others.

I have come to sort of understand the concept of American dreams and their relevance to me.

I have, again, been shown the ephemeral nature of my own existence.

I am about to get home—or getting closer to home… with dasein being the home—at least , that’s what I hope.

Perhaps, if one day I shall write a story about ratprincess in Ratology, I shall, at the beginning of one of the chapters, state, “There was once upon a time when there was a ratprincess who did not know that she was one of those living to fulfill her American Dream….”

Awaking from the dream or nightmare, what does the dream entail of?

A ratprincess with a steady job, which comes with benefits, and, with the need to reinvent her career while struggling between her career and her family.

Yet, the American Dream that seems to be most pertinent now is…

Just let me walk smoothly across the dire street humanly without the need to take a break.

It is a dream shared by many... and many sharing it along the same theme.